Woke church cancels annual July 4th celebration in America's 250th year because of 'our own whiteness'

The U.S. Declaration of Independence.

The U.S. is just about a month away from celebrating its 250th birthday, but one woke church in Massachusetts has called off its annual Fourth of July celebration for the big semiquincentennial due to an overwhelming sense of guilt over its "whiteness."

The Nantucket Unitarian Universalists Church announced in recent days that instead of holding an Independence Day celebration on July 4 this year, it will instead be staging a "political protest" of the Supreme Court's recent decision to end gerrymandering along racial lines. For the last 25 years, the church has celebrated the Fourth of July by holding a reading of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, according to The New York Post. Not this year, however.

“Our cancelling the 4th of July celebration this year reflects the deep concern we are feeling since the Supreme Court decision, as well as an on-going process within the congregation to better understand our own whiteness and how we can be part of changing an inherently unfair system which has been in place for 250 years," Rev. Erin Splaine wrote last week in a letter to the editor of The Nantucket Current. 

According to the Boston Herald, locals have reacted with "disappointment" over the decision. Nantucket is an iconic Massachusetts island town, one of the early settings of Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. About 15,000 people live there, with the population swelling as vacationers visit during the summer months. 

The Boston Herald reported that another church on the island, St. Paul's, has agreed to host its own reading the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. “Those documents are aspirational,” Rev. Max Wolf of St. Paul's Church said. “We may not be there yet, but we felt it was important to gather together and try to live up to the promises our country has made.”